


Do Not Save the Ferocious, Save the Tender

by AvaRosier



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate version of Westeros, F/M, Folklore-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 21:49:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8225834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaRosier/pseuds/AvaRosier
Summary: There are many stories about wolves and girls. But what they never say is that sometimes war and cruelty force girls to become wolves in order to survive. Who, then, could love such a creature?Why, a monster.(Persephone and Hades AU, inspired by Catherynne Valente's Deathless, and maybe a dash of Angela Carter-esque Red Riding Hood. Written for the Jon x Sansa Fanfiction October Challenge.)





	

  
**"Why is it always the woman who has to see past the beast in the man? why does she always have to clean his wounds, even after he has damaged her beyond repair? why is it always the man who is worthy of forgiveness for being a monster?**  
**I want to see the beast in the beauty.**  
**the half smile, half snarl. the unapologetic anger. I would like to see the man forgive the monster. to see her, blood and all, and love her anyway."**  


 

  
_Beauty and the Beast_ by Caitlyn Siehl

 

 

* * *

 

 

Autumn has come, and not a moment too soon, for Jon sorely needed this time to himself. Lord though he may be, of the massive and imposing Dragonstone castle and its surrounding lands in the valleys of the mountains, he still insists on taking a sennight away from his duties in order to hole up in the Wyldewood with only Ghost with him for company. Even though these are his own woods, and none are allowed to hunt here or fell a single tree without his express invitation, and even though his direwolf has proven himself fierce in battle, his personal guards barely allow him out of their sight.

The skies are gray, as they often are this time of the year, the leaves just beginning turn from green to yellow, the canopy enveloping him in their close embrace. It's less constricting than Dragonstone. Jon loves his people and he does his best to do right by them, but it just hasn't been the same since the war ended. He has always tried to be fair, but after being faced with the cruelty of men, fairness ends up meaning no mercy.

He is a monster. He feels it beneath his skin, like an itch that won't go away no matter how he stretches his limbs or tries to exhaust it into nothingness. His days stretch out before him, as gray as the skies. It is lovely out here, though, where the earth smells rich and the leaves sigh softly.

Jon hunts a rabbit for his supper that night, a kill that fails to impress Ghost if his disdainful clomp out into the wood is anything to go by. Jon just chuckles mirthlessly and starts stripping the hare. That, as well as the bread and the ale he had brought with him do well to leave him sated and ready to collapse into his cot inside the small hut. His dreams are full of shifting shapes but, thank the gods, there are no ghosts waiting there to devour him.

She comes out of the ether, with hair like wildfire and she is naked. It has been so many moons since Jon bedded a woman, his mind is now bringing them to him in his dreams. Her flesh is pale and he smells cedar as she bends low to kiss him. The frisson of pleasure that floods his spine when she scrapes her teeth over his lip makes it almost feel real. Jon reaches up to cup her breasts in the palms of his hands, feeling the silky press of nipple. It's enough to distract him from the woman unlacing his breeches but the cool fingers curling around his stiff and aching cock have him groaning and arching up into her caress. She grips him and lowers herself down onto him, taking his breath away and awakening him fully.

Instinct has him jackknifing up on the cot and gripping the intruder's arms tightly. She stills on his lap, but he's still feeling the sharp edge of desire, especially with her cunt stretched over him like a warm, wet glove.

“Who in the seven hells are you?” He growls out.

“I'm a wolf,” she tells him without a trace of fear, staring at him in the dim light of the hut. He can see it now: the spark of an animal behind her eyes and the hint of fang in her smile. “And you're mine.”

The declaration echoes in the silence, but Jon can barely hear it over the roar of blood rushing past his ears and feel the thud of something un-lodging in his bones. In that moment, he ceases to care whether this is real or if he is going mad. There is only the slippery slide of her cunt and two sets of claws-hers and his- digging into flesh for purchase as they begin to move together. If he is a monster, then so is she. When she keens out the first of three peaks he will give her before the sun dawns, it sounds almost like a howl.

Tonight, they will be monsters together.

 

* * *

 

 

“Why?”

“What do you mean 'why'?” Robb explodes, slamming a fist down on the table before shoving his chair away and pacing the length of the solar.

“Yes,” she asks her brother again, crossing her arms obstinately. “Why should I marry at all, let alone to _him_? Just because I'm ruined?”

His silence is all the answer she needs. “I see,” she says dully.

The anger and frustration melts away from Robb's face then, and he crouches before her, reaching out to clasp her hands in his own. Sansa stares at them instead of the pleading look in those blue eyes, twin to her own. “In spite of...what happened...I have known Jon for years now and he is a honorable man. He will be a strong and kind husband to you. I could not ask for a better man, truly.”

Honorable was exactly the problem. She remembers very clearly the look of horror on Jon's face the next morning when he found out who she was. _I-I know your brother, my lady. I fought beside him. For your father, for you_. She had sat there on the cot, dressed in her dirty and torn dress once more, and watched him pace back and forth as he worried about the dishonor he had just done her and the potential bastard babe he had just put into her belly.

It has been a fortnight since they- _fucked_ \- and she has received her moon-blood. It's almost like the aching, gnawing emptiness in her womb is punishing her for what is not there. Not that it matters, for Jon, Robb, and even her mother are resolute. In less than a fortnight, she will be back at Dragonstone, this time to wed Lord Snow.

Sansa says nothing, she simply lifts her head and stares outside at the vast, rolling hills awash in the amber light of the late afternoon. The harvest has just begun here in Winterfell, earlier than any other place in the kingdom, and everywhere Sansa looks, the people are joyous and easy to laughter. The food is bountiful, yet even after years of depriving herself because what passed between her lips was the only thing she had true control over, she denies herself. No honeyed berries, no warm chicken and root vegetable stew to comfort her, not even her favorite lemon cakes, made with the last of the fresh lemons before the rest went into preservation.

There, just beyond the window is a maple tree and on one of the branches, against a background of golden leaves, a handsome swallow with iridescent blue-green feathers warbles his song before taking flight. How often had she desperately wished she could be a bird so that she might fly away from all those places with their gilded cages? But the gods had not been so merciful.

_My body is not my own._

“Safe in a house and a husband, that's where you belong- that's what Father wanted for you, remember?” _Of course I remember_ , she nearly snaps at her brother before she remembers to keep her teeth hidden. But he must see something terrible in her glare, for he flinches. Her memory is full of ghosts, and they are all hungry.

 

* * *

 

She had worn a pair of thick woolen stockings to bed that night, claiming defense against the autumn chill, a partial lie she regrets now. Her legs to just above the knee are toasty, true, but instead of insulating more of her skin from his, they have the damnable effect of sensitizing her inner thighs even further.

Sansa ignores the kiss of coarse hair there just as she is ignoring the harsh breathing near her ear, the heavy weight that keeps her hips trapped against the mattress, and the hard thrust and glide of her husband's cock. Resolutely, her knees remain bent and as close to the bed as possible and, as she always does since he had begun coming to her once a sennight this past month, her hands clutch at her nightrail, fisting the material against the sheets on either side of her hips as if the act would keep her from giving in to the faint tendrils of pleasure in her woman's place.

She is proud of her ability to thus far resist...to stay in control and-

“Sansa?” Jon asks her, his voice echoing in the stillness of the night.

She can barely make out the shape of his head in the pitch black room, but she can feel his eyes on her, almost see his eyebrows knit together. “Yes, my lord?”

His sigh drifts across her lips and she bites them to destroy the memory of a kiss. “Are you well?”

Sansa swallows a sigh of her own and wonders, not for the first time, just who she is punishing by lying there like a limp fish in the marriage bed: Jon, her mother and Robb, or herself. Just as the thought comes, she ruthlessly squashes it. She continues to resist this marriage because she _could_. Because it is the only thing she has that is her own that they cannot take away unless she allows it.

“I am as well as can be, my lord.”

Jon remains still above her for several long moments before he resumes his motions, but this time the rhythm of his hips are quicker, rougher. Sansa lies there observing with detached interest as her husband begins to lose control of himself, the line of his body tensing. He drives his cock into her as deeply as humanely possible and from the faint tremors she feels, he has just emptied his seed into her. She has to breathe carefully to prevent the stutter in her chest when she can't stop herself from briefly fluttering around him. Sansa does not want to meditate on the rush of power she'd experienced just now.

When he practically flings himself away from her to lie on his back, panting softly, she knows he is angry. _Good_ , she thinks triumphantly.

She wastes no time in tugging her nightrail back down over her hips and waits patiently in the dark, feeling the bed dip as Jon sits up and starts pulling his breeches back up over his hips.

“See you in the morrow, wife.” He bites out before leaving her for his own bed. Sansa presses her thighs tightly together to slow the trickle of seed from her body.

 

* * *

 

 

On their wedding night, when they had snuck away from the celebrations before any bedding ceremony could be called for, Jon had made it clear that he would not demand his rights to her and left her on the other side of the bed to sleep unmolested. For the first two moons, he had not so much as visited her chambers. This both relieved and angered her. Of course, people had noticed. Servants talk, after all. It hadn't been long before Sansa's advisors brought the matter up with her.

“Lady Snow, I am loathe to upset the delicate balance we have built here but-”

Tyrion Lannister found himself biting his tongue when her head snapped up and she shot him an irritated glare. Holding his hands up in a mollifying manner, he corrected himself. “I apologize yet again, _Lady Sansa_ , but the time has come to discuss your becoming Lord Snow's wife.”

Up until that proclamation, Sansa had been rather violently stabbing her threaded needle through a soft gray damask that would soon become a new day dress. Upon his words, however, her fingers stilled. “I thought I already was Lord Snow's wife? Or were the vows I took before the old gods nothing but a nightmare?” She asked him innocently. Tyrion shivered at the coldness in her voice. She's heard what they say about her around the castle- that their Lord's wife is so cold she could hold ice in her mouth without it melting. Sansa was nothing like the wispy young girl he had first met in the capitol years ago. Tyrion sighed in frustration, eyes darting over to the empty wine jug, clearly wishing he hadn't already drank the last of it, and directed a pleading look at the woman sat on a nearby chair.

“Lady Talisa, if you would?”

The lady in question set down the bunch of herbs she had been carefully tying off with lengths of twine. “What Mr. Lannister means is that it is clear to the people who live and work around Dragonstone that you and Lord Snow are scantly more than husband and wife in name only. As he is a relatively new Lord, such a division between you and he is off-putting and reflects poorly on you. He did, after all, personally order you these bolts of material so that you could make your own dresses once again.” That gave Sansa pause. She had been raised to be a good lady wife, her mother had seen to that, and even during the worst of her torments in the capitol, Sansa had tried to be unfailingly polite. She gave Talisa a guilty look. Lord Snow had brought Lady Talisa back with him after the end of the war, where she had worked as a healer on the battlefields. Sansa had of course wondered whether Talisa was her husband's mistress, especially now, but she had seen no sign proving this. Talisa had, however, become her closest friend here.

“And how exactly am I supposed to become his wife in more than name only?” Sansa demurred, tossing the damask onto the table in frustration. Tyrion's response was instant and acerbic. “Well, for starters, you can welcome him into your bed every so often.”

“And perhaps you could cease ignoring your husband's existence entirely and begin exercising your rights as Lady of Dragonstone,” Talisa interjected more diplomatically, shooting Tyrion a warning look.

“And how should I do that?” Sansa addresed Talisa first before tilting her head at Tyrion. “Why am I not surprised your esteemed advice is to whore myself out for the good of the realm?”

Tyrion opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by Talisa. “Your lord husband sits judgment over disputes within his borders, does he not? Perhaps you could make an appearance at the next one.”

Scarcely a week after their conversation, Lady Snow made her first appearance at the council. Sansa relished the look of shock on Jon's face, and the wary appreciation when she listened intently to each petition and offered her lord husband her own opinion for consideration. For her part, Sansa was pleasantly surprised to see Jon take her words into account and at times make her judgment his own. When he smiled at her after, Sansa could almost feel the gnarled branches of the wood she'd grown behind her ribcage start to crackle and fall away. She could almost start to remember the colors of her girlhood- the fantasies of brave, chivalrous knights and sweet maidens who fell in love and lived happily ever after like in the songs.

And that terrified her, for she was not that girl any longer, not after the south, not after _that man_ and his dogs in that frigid forest. She had a soft body and a hard heart. Has to.

Still, she tries.

Sansa informed Jon over the breaking of their fast that she would wait up for him tonight, and that had been all she'd had to say to make her intention clear. Jon could do naught but swallow his bread slowly and nod.

She asked him to, and he came. He had lain there next to her in the dark, which was a balm for her pride, and reached down underneath her nightrail with fingers wet from his own mouth, to rub at that button that makes her go hot and weak. She had been stirred, she _is_ stirred. She wanted all the things that good ladies Do Not Want. Like that night in the Wyldewood.

But Jon had married a wife, not a wolf.

Sansa laid there calmly, while inside she raged. Jon had pressed such sweet kisses against her face, stoked the fire within her, and ran his fingers through her long, loose hair with naked wonderment in he eyes. If she let herself, Sansa could be like a wolf brought inside, fed and petted until she wanted nothing more but to curl around Jon in front of a fire. Such weakness could not be borne; the hunters would come then. So the next time he knocked at her door, her hair was braided out of his reach and she refused to allow him to ready her. Sansa had felt his confusion in the dark but, too proud to reassure him, their bedding became a cold war.

 

* * *

 

 

After this, he may not deign to visit her chambers again, and she is not sure if that is the solution she wanted after all. Jon has never so much as raised his hand to her, although sometimes they raise their voices to one other in disagreement over how the castle or its lands are run. He sees to her comfort even when she pushes him away. There were much worse fates than to be sweet and trusting with one's own husband, Sansa knows.

The war is over and maybe she is tired of fighting; she can tell he is, too.

“What time shall you be visiting me, my lord?” She asks him primly. She keeps her attention on spooning up the next mouthful of dessert to avoid the sudden scrutiny. It's not lemon cake, but it is made with preserved lemons and there is a small burst of summer on her tongue with every bite. Tonight she has eaten more than she had in years and it feels like living, again.

She almost pities her husband his constant confusion when it comes to her behavior. He had probably expected that after the way they'd ended the last visit, she'd not ask him and he wouldn't presume to come to her room again.

“Ten o'clock then?” He offers, after a length. Her guilt returns at the realization that Jon still holds out hope for a good marriage with her.

“I will be ready for you then...husband.” 

 

Five minutes before the clock chimes the hour, Sansa slides underneath the blankets and wriggles until she has pulled her nightrail up to just underneath her breasts, further than she has ever done before. Her hair is loose and she keeps the stockings on. Right after the clock finishes chiming the hour, a knock comes at her door.

“You may enter,” she calls out.

She watches the dark shape of her husband approach the bed, hears the rasp of laces being undone. Then, as if it were his turn to surprise her, Jon removes his tunic as well. A pang of anticipation makes her abdomen clench at the thought of feeling him that closely. The bed dips as he lowers himself down into it, tugging at the covers as he pulls them over his bare lower half.  Sansa wonders what could possibly be going through his mind as he lies there next to her, unmoving. Could he be trying to build up the willpower to roll over on top of her? She'd deserve his reticence. After a-

The thread of her thoughts are interrupted when she spots the faint outline of the blanket over Jon's hips rising and falling in a jerking motion. _Oh_. Her cheeks flame with shame and something else at the realization that her husband is working his fist over his cock to make it hard before he...before he _services her_. There's something strange about that idea and it has her rubbing her thighs together until her pearl throbs with want.

He lifts the covers but before he can move into the cradle of her thighs, Sansa grabs ahold of his hand and guides it over the softening skin of her lower belly. He exhales loudly near her ear when his fingers comb through the wild thatch of hair guarding her sex, and then ceases breathing altogether when his fingers part the lips of her cunt, no doubt encountering the sticky wetness gathered there. She lets go of his wrist then, trusting that Jon will understand the message without her needing to verbalize anything.

He does. Sansa sinks back into her pillow, sighing and widening her thighs as Jon's fingers stroke her folds before slowly sinking them into her. She mewls at the stretch, wriggling to accommodate the thickness. Her hips rock against his hand, eager to feel the touch she's denied herself for so long. Jon's cock is hard against her hip as he twists his fingers inside her and introduces his thumb, letting it rub lightly against her nub. His voice is gravelly and strained as he murmurs words of encouragement that run from the sweet to the filthy, his breath hot and heavy on her cheek. _That's it, sweet girl...keep moving like that...by the gods, I would never leave your cunt if I could help it._ Sansa's skin feels simultaneously hot and cold as the immense feeling builds and builds.

But even now, the vestiges of her pride stop her. She yanks his hand from between her legs and tugs at his shoulders. Fortunately, Jon doesn't seem offended by her actions. To the contrary, he all but rips the blankets away before maneuvering himself on top of her, weighing her down once more. Sansa manages to move in a way that makes her nightrail slide further up, exposing her breasts just in time for all that warm, hard, bare skin to come into contact with hers. Even Jon freezes for a long moment when he realizes her breasts are bared to him this time. The coarse hair on his chest abrades her nipples, and Sansa cannot stop herself from writhing so she can prolong the feeling. He fumbles in between their bodies and presses the tip of his cock against the petals of her flower, giving her no time to adjust as he slides into her in one smooth, inexorable motion. Sansa can't help moaning loudly as she clenches around the intrusion. Back arching, she stretches her arms out on the mattress, shuddering at the sensation of being filled. Jon finds her hands, threading his fingers through hers and lifting some of his weight onto their joined hands. He begins to move his hips, then, building quickly up to powerful, rough thrusts that make the bed shake from the force of it.

Jon's face is barely an inch away from hers, but Sansa denies him a kiss, though she meets every thrust with a roll of her hips against his own. This brings her nub into contact with the base of his cock, causing small bursts of pleasure to grow and grow until she's lost herself to the climb. She certainly can sense him watching her, studying her every reaction, and exploiting it. Maybe Jon is punishing her by being so relentless, but then the coil that had been tightening inside her snaps and she cries out as the waves ripple through her body. She continues to meet his thrusts until he tenses against her body and stills. With the satisfaction coursing through her, obliterating her damned pride, Sansa turns her head and brushes her lips against Jon's, startling him.

They lie there, skin damp with sweat and lips touching in something that can barely be called a kiss. Their breaths pant and mingle before Jon finally angles his head and slants his lips over hers, encouraging her to follow suit. Her legs can't seem to stop trembling and his cock is softening inside her, but she kisses him back.

And unlike all her fears, kissing Jon doesn't feel like a surrender.

 

* * *

 

She bites into the pomegranate eagerly, unconcerned by the juices running down her chin. The taste is heady, though maybe the fluttering sensation she's experiencing right now is more from the way Jon smiles at her, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners. Firelight and shadows play across his face and this time, she smiles back. Everyone is laughing and shouting back and forth over flagons of ale and goblets of wine, enjoying the warmth of the bonfire. Allhallowtide is upon them, where they pay their respects to the dead at the tipping point between autumn and winter, but celebrate the living as well. The only ghost that dogs her footsteps is Ghost, licking at her fingers.

It takes nearly no forethought for Sansa to step closer to Jon, dropping the now-barren fruit down onto the ground for the direwolf to play with, and tease her lips over his. She hopes he can taste the pomegranate on his lips, sticky and tart. Jon cups her face ever so gently in his hands, sweeping his tongue against hers, making her tingly in parts of her body she doesn't think she can reach. She smiles against his mouth and pulls away, holding his half-lidded gaze with her own.

Then she's off, half walking, half running away into the woods, glancing back to make sure he knows she wants him to follow. He does. No one pays them any heed- the Lord and Lady of Dragonstone sneaking off to have their own private celebration.

The branches are rough and bare beneath her hands as she threads her way around the trees, face upturned to the moonlight barely concealed by clouds. Jon is a dark shape making his way in the shadows, content to stay several dozen paces behind her. There is a sense of inevitability between them, as if they both know exactly how this is going to end. And it will end exactly the way she wants it to.

Sansa presses on until the noises of revelry fade but she can still smell the smoke in the cooled air. Here, Jon catches up to her and spins her around, setting her back against one thick trunk. He kisses her, and it's a joyful, effulgent thing that has her lungs expanding against her ribcage, unhindered. The words also bubble out, needing to be said and understood.

“I was hunted, in a forest far east of here, by a cruel man and his dogs,” she tells him. Jon stills against her but his arms are strong, heavy weights anchoring her to his body. “He told me he was going to rape me, that he was going to see what I looked like without my skin on, and then he was going to feed me to his dogs.”

“What happened then?”

“The children of the forest heard my pleas and made me a wolf. With it, I tore his throat out, and that of his hounds.” She can still remember the cries, the tearing of flesh, and the hot rush of blood into her mouth.

Jon places a gentle kiss against her forehead before meeting her eyes, seeming calm but she can see the flare of his nostrils in the moonlight and the intense, half-wild look in his eyes. “I'm glad,” he tells her. This time, when their lips meet, the kiss is wet and wide open, as if they are trying to crawl up inside each other. “My little red wolf,” he murmurs, tugging her skirts upward. Once her bare thighs are exposed to the chilly night breeze, Jon lowers himself onto his knees on the damp earth. She's never had such a thing done to her before, lips kissing her flower and tongue lashing at her pearl. That, and the scratch of Jon's beard, leaves her quivering and rubbing herself wantonly against his face. 

Sansa would swear her blood sings as she nips at his mouth and tugs at the laces of his breeches. Once his cock is out and very much hard, Sansa wastes no time in lowering herself down on top of him, humming over the sounds of Jon's appreciative gasps until she is properly settled. She rides him like a wild creature, knees and palms digging into dead leaves. For his part, Jon has one hand tangled in her braid, gripping tightly until shudders of pleasure-pain shoot from her scalp down her spine. The other hand is between them, rolling her pearl until she is keening out her peak.

This is their offering to the gods tonight.

 

* * *

 

It is late as Jon carries Sansa back to the castle, taking her to his chambers instead. She's never been, and maybe he's pushing his luck, but Jon isn't ready to let go of her. Sansa wakens when he lies her down on the furs, smiling sleepily up at him. He could grow used to such looks. She is a confounding woman, his wife, but he is wise enough by now to know that she, like him, could never go back to the way she was before the war. That she deserves a measure of patience to become accustomed to a sense of safety, to a husband that ached to protect and cherish her rather than make her hurt.

“Here,” he tells her, handing her a small wrapped bundle. “I was going to give this to you for your nameday, but...” Jon trails off, feeling less a Lord of his own castle than a shy green boy before the first pretty girl he's ever had the attention of. Sansa sits up on top of the furs and pulls apart the ends of the cloth, grinning brilliantly when she sees what lies within: a silver brush, with boar bristles. A luxury, yes, but one he had seen and at once knew his lady wife needed to possess it.

Jon is confused then, when Sansa hands the brush to him. She twists around on the bed and pulls at the ties holding her braid together. Over her shoulder, she implores him. “Brush my hair? Please?”

He can no more resist than the sun refuse to cross the sky every day. Perching on the edge of the mattress, Jon reaches up with trembling hands and runs the bristles through the fiery waterfall of her hair, turning it silken with every pass of the brush. The act is hypnotic, but he does not miss the way Sansa's breathing quickens or the way she shivers from the simple pleasure of having her hair brushed. His prickly wife relaxes against him, allowing him to put down the brush and curl his arms around her. She nestles into his embrace, already half-asleep with the echo of a smile on her lips.

Maybe this was all he had needed: for his hands to remember that they could be tender, too. That he was not a monster, but a man. That the darkness could be soft, and not something to recoil from in horror and disgust.

This is their kingdom, his and Sansa's, and they will make their home in it.

 

 

 


End file.
